


The Five times Cora Didn’t Have a Heart and The One Time She Did

by MinaMauveine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, The Five Times, Written when Millard Daughter first came out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:05:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaMauveine/pseuds/MinaMauveine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brief character study of Cora Mills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five times Cora Didn’t Have a Heart and The One Time She Did

One  
Lying with Prince Henry could be describe, at best, as a necessary chore. Her unremarkable husband was the most inept of the remaining children of King Xavier. He was at the same time as eager and timid as a puppy whilst bed. His touch didn’t excite her like Rumples or infuriate her like Eva’s. His Kisses were always a tolerable mess that left her lips moist and her heart cold.  
Thankfully she didn’t even have a heart anymore.

Two  
The next time she met Eva for afternoon tea, Cora had been crowned a Princess but the title meant little to the born royalty. A vicious and teasing smile taunts at Eva’s lips as she tugs at the laces of Cora’s sartorial dress. Cora doesn’t nearly have as much patience and heats up her palms until she can sear and burn away at the clothes; finery she hadn’t even fathom owning back when working at the family mill. The fabric rolls off Eva’s body, not quite pain to leave lasting damage but enough to singe.

The princess-by-lineage claws her fingernails down Cora’s open backed dress. Cora returns the favour by wrapping her fingers around Eva’s throat in a vice like grip. Her nails breaking through skin until the incisions dripped out metallic tasting blood. Her actions promising the rise of thin crescent moon scars that will cause Eva to don stylishly high-necked garments to conceal the evidence of their tryst.

The thrill of marking what she had no right to claim caused her heart to eagerly hammer to life. At least somewhere in her hidden safe a tiny wooden box began to rattle and shake.

Three  
The one time Cora humoured the notion of placing the useless piece of flesh back into her chest cavity was the day her child was born. Perfect, dimpled, babe of hers. In Regina flowed the blood of royalty but was also tainted by essence of Cora’s peasant heritage. 

How could she protect and raise her daughter up into greatness if her emotions befuddled logic? The silly idea soon passes from her mind. 

Four  
She’s laying in a coffin her darling child has crafted. The chamber was created to house her dead body. Her precious, naive daughter still loves her. Long forgotten emotions stir in her chest and soften her resolve to kill, it restrains her need to snatch Regina’s heart into her collection. Unfortunately, these feelings weren’t strong enough to cause her to reconcile with her child but just meeting the requirements to incite her into cooking up a scheme and thus set up a dangerous play of webs.  
She didn’t just want Regina’s love.  
Cora wanted everything.

Five  
The first time Cora catches a glimpse of Henry she encounters a bizarre concoctions of emotions that is one part acidic hate and another part tingling curiosity Mostly she just has jealousy licking at her internal organs, where her daughter’s love had once been reserved only for her, it was now split into three places. A part was squandered on this adoptive son and a section devoted to his blonde birth mother.  
To Regina, Henry equated the very meaning of life itself. It was both sickening and repulsive. Cora wants to throttle the boy whenever he became unintentionally cruel to her daughter and then feels the urge to embrace him into her arms and go for a round of introductions.  
In the end Cora does neither. It’s not like she feels that much for the child.

And The One Time She Did Have Her Heart.  
Pain violently erupts within her rib cage as her heart slots back into place. Its beating is erratic and frenzied, as if trying to make up for all the years it had lain dormant outside of her body. She feels her face beam into a smile that absolutely glows when Regina mirrors the expression with a dash of hopeful relief.

Her darling, intelligent, daughter. Cora’s heart jumps too quickly and delivers the poison into every nook and pore of her system, leaving clogging pus and blossoming pain in its wake. When Cora falters, she falls into her daughter’s trembling arms.

She feels herself utter the most heartfelt words she’s ever said in her entire her life, even counting the time when a blackened heart drummed away in her vindictive little body. ”This would’ve been enough.”

Why was it when love finally mattered it was always too late. She wants to advise Regina to return to the righteous path, the one her daughter’s gentle nature had begun on.

Cora yearns to share that once upon a time love had meant more to her than power. ”You would’ve been enough.”

Reality was no fairy tale and instead of allotting Cora with the strength to pass on her words of wisdom, she instead has to faintly witness her daughter shatter before her very eyes. She has never given Regina a reason to want for physical belongings though she realizes now that she’s been completely emotionally detached from her child since day one.

Cora is mute as she witnesses the last of Regina’s gentle untarnished nature melt into oblivion along with her own gradually silencing heart.

**Author's Note:**

> [Buy Me a Coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/A1464VTG)


End file.
